


Children of a Lesser God

by antithestral



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Fix-It, Gen, this one time: everybody gets to live!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 14:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18831010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antithestral/pseuds/antithestral
Summary: People forget sometimes, that Peter Quill is more than human, that he is part not-person, that the alchemy of his soul is cast from stardust. Sometimes, when he dreams, he sees the beginning of creation, the end of time, intermingling, coexisting. Sometimes, in the background radiation of the universe, he hears a deep and terrible song.And the moment he sees those stones drifting to Stark’s gauntlet, he already knows what he has to do.





	Children of a Lesser God

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, it's piping hot mess. I wrote it in under 40 minutes. So. Sorry?

Peter knows what he has to do the moment he sees those stones drifting to Stark’s gauntlet, knows it with a sickness deep in his bones, knows it with the rightness of a sunrise, the heat of Gamora’s smile, the cold whisper of a wind on the moons of Icthyonous.

“Groot,” he calls out, and hates himself for it. Groot turns to face him, eyes warm and dark and trusting and _young_ , so young, and _fuck_ anyone who says that isn’t his kid. That’s his boy, his and Drax’s and Gamora’s, and Rocket’s most of all.

“I am Groot,” comes the quiet reply, and his heart twists viciously in his chest. _Forgive me,_ he thinks and knows he doesn't deserve it.

What kind of father sends his children out to die?

 

 

 

 

The thing is.  
The problem is.

Look, the Avengers seem like a swell bunch and all, but the Guardians have _done_ this, when it was just the five of them, have shouldered the weight of an Infinity Stone, and lived to tell the tale.

And there are so _many_ of them now. So many, who are brave and kind and _good_ , who are fighting for the cosmos, who are willing to lay down their lives, all human, all stupid and nutty and _human_ , and Peter can't keep down the surge of brilliant happiness, in the middle of all this carnage: _My people,_ he can't help but think. _These are my people too._

Peter’s dad had been a psychopath, a monster, a chickenshit cowardly son of a bitch. He should've known he got his stupid fucking recklessness from his mom.

 

 

 

 

 

And then, “NO!” Rocket roars, with that preternatural awareness of a parent, snapping him out of it, “Groot, _**NO**!!!”_

Peter never really lost Groot, loved only the sapling he had helped raise, and he had died on Titan when Groot died on Earth. But Rocket had already lost him once, and then lost him again to Thanos, and—and a third time now.

He can't. _He can't._  But that's his kid, Groot is, and he's brave and self-sacrificing and the best of them all, and even Rocket knows he cannot stop Groot from laying down on the wire, from doing the thing that needs to be done. So he turns to Peter instead, eyes lit with unholy fire. The look is calm, cold, filled with unwavering intent: _I’m going to kill you._

 _Fair enough,_ Peter thinks sickly. _If we survive this, I’ll put the gun in your hand myself._

 

 

 

 

 

But all of this has happened in the space of less than a second, the stones have only touched Stark’s gauntlet, and he has only just opened his mouth to speak.

“STRANGE!” Peter roars, and the wizard dude in the cape turns to him. There is no time to speak, no time to put it in words.

 _Save my kid,_ he thinks. _Help him live. Please. Please._

Groot has begun unraveling across the battlefield already, has stopped fighting entirely, letting bullets and knives and shrapnel tear through his body unhindered. There are cool, knotted branches curling over Peter’s shoulders. Leaves tickling his skin. He closes his eyes, and breathes it in. The scent of something fresh and resinous lingers all around him, like a Christmas morning.

And then they appear, in the blink of an eye, the shielding domes, all at once, a spellweaving of perfect, orchestral symphony, like the crescendo of a complex aria, and the light of it is golden and bright, so bright it hurts to look, so bright everything turns silent, a new sunrise dawning from the battlefield itself.

He can feel Groot too, reaching into his lungs, his ribs, his heart, can feel the roar of his blood and that lingering scent of evergreen, and people forget sometimes, that Peter is more than human, that he is part not-person, that the alchemy of his soul is cast from stardust. Sometimes, when he dreams, he sees the beginning of creation, the end of time, intermingling, coexisting. Sometimes, in the background radiation of the universe, he hears a deep and terrible song.

Tony Stark speaks. “I am Iron Man.”

 

 

 

 

 

And they are all of them _there_ , with him, in his mind, speaking the word in discordant harmony, _all of them,_ all vibrant, battle-hardened souls, all warriors, all survivors, all scarred and bleeding and beautiful. He can feel Groot, vast and unimaginable, and within him, the green, pulsing core of life, lifting them up, shielding them from the stones, from their terrible price.

“I am Iron Man,” Stark says, and the stones burn, and Peter can feel fragments of each of their lives rushing through him, a tsunami, a wave of sound—

 

 

 _‘—your other name: the Merchant of Death—’_  
_‘—not a great soldier, but a good man—’_  
_‘—what were you the god of, again?—’_

 

 

Pain, like a tidal wave, and Peter can taste blood in his mouth, and it won't end, it won't end, a thousand screams lifting into the air, and oh god, what has he done? _What has he done?—_

 

 

 _‘—got red in my ledger—’_  
_‘—if you're nothing without the suit—’_  
_‘—till the end of the line—’_

 

 

And then, silence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony couldn't feel his arm. It was quiet, he was warm, and he couldn't feel his left arm, and his first thought was, _‘If I build myself a new arm, Barnes is going to be fucking_ insufferable _forever.’_

Which was a funny thing to think about, considering that he had never so much as breathed the same air as the man without trying to rip the heart out of his fucking chest, but hey, as it turned out later, he had been on many, many, extremely strong drugs just then.

He blinked slowly, tried to look at his arm, and only saw a large, vaguely misshapen lump, that slowly resolved into—

“Daddy? Y'r up?”

His heart thumped unsteadily in his chest. She sounded like the littlest, drunkenest sailor in the world. God, he loved her so fucking much.  “Morgan,” he whispered, from a top hoarse throat. His eyes were burning.

“G’mornin’.”

“Good morning, sweetheart,” Tony said, voice breaking on the last word. He closed his eyes until the tears had gone away, and then looked around the room. There was Pep, on the chair next to his bed, fast asleep, snoring delicately, her neck at an awful angle.

There was, _oh,_ there was Peter, sprawled out on the couch near the opposite wall, arms and legs trailing to the ground like wayward vines. He was drooling a little.

There was Happy, who hadn't bothered with a chair at all, sitting on the ground, back against the couch. Someone had tucked a blanket over him.

There was—

“Hey,” Rhodey said, from the big, Lazyboy he had somehow dragged into the hospital ward. Captain Mar— Carol Danvers was curled up on his chest like a giant, blonde cat. His eyes were red, bloodshot and puffy, and Tony felt a curious, warm surge of affection for Danvers, for the way she had draped herself on top of him, like a pretty, person-shaped, cosmically-powerful shield.

“Next time,” Rhodey said, and his voice was shaking, the way it had, that first time in the desert, “next time, you ride with me, okay?”

Tony laughed, and felt the hot slide of tears from the corners of his eyes. He held Morgan tighter, kissed the top of her head, breathed in baby shampoo and powder and oh god, oh god, he had come so close to losing it all, so close.

Part of the journey was the end.

But there was Morgan, now, and Peter, Kate Barton and Cassie Lang. There was Shuri, princess of Wakanda, and Harley, that little anklebiter who had somehow wrangled an early acceptance at MIT.

There was a whole generation of heroes, growing up, everywhere Tony looked. There was a sunrise on the horizon.

This journey had just begun.


End file.
